just a joke. I am sure our friends from the travelling community would take it for what it is. Sorry if you were offended

@RobH86 Having lived for six years without connected running water or electricity I take great offense. In those six years there was not one day when I didn't wash my whole body at least once in the day. Furthermore I am very sensitive to jokes about gypsies, Rom and Sinti.

@FrayedBear Really, bro. That is the name of a real moth. Has nothing to do with gypsies or homeless! Dang, dude! I knew many Romany when I worked carnivals & spent time on the streets myself at a number of different times. Joke had nothing to do with either!!!

#Romany, #Genocide,#Holocaust, #Auschwitz, #MrsMerkel, #TiergartenMemorial

@phxbillcee New information to me. In N. America I read that the moth is an "accidentally" introduced pest that does untold damage to trees. No laughing matter.

The only gypsy moths that I knew of were Francis Chichester's boat and the famous deHavilland Gipsy Moth probably the first aeroplane to have a top mounted crankshaft: I used to watch them fly overhead from the local aerodrome when sunbaking in the back yard in the 50's and 60's.

[en.m.wikipedia.org]

But returning to the Travelling People I invite you to listen to the complete 58 minute ground breaking BBC Radio Ballad "The Travelling People" where you can hear the voices of British Rom and Travelling People relating live experiences of their existance.

That was the knowledge that I grew up with of conditions for UK gypsies and travelling people. Not the experiences of living under the opulence of EU hand outs to Ireland and other remote parts of the British Isles.

I continue to make the point that it took until 2012 to raise a memorial to the 200 - 500,000 Roma and Sinti killed through the German genocide of the people at such places as Auschwitz during WWII.
If nothing else please read the following BBC report and Mrs Merkel's tribute.
I reproduce the words of the leader of the Central Council of Sinti and Roma in Germany, Romani Rose, who was also at the ceremony.

He told Agence France-Presse: "Opening the memorial sends an important message to society that anti-Roma sentiment is as unacceptable as anti-Semitism."

However, Roma organisations and human rights groups say they are still discriminated against in many European countries.

[bbc.com]

@FrayedBear I will get to the "ballad", did read the BBC article. I get it, most of this I was aware of. The Irish have their own "Travellers". All of that being said, you got triggered over an innocuous joke & went off on somebody for all the wrong reasons. Didn't hurt me, but, honestly, he apologized, tho he had nothing to apologize for, & not to put you in a corner, but I think you owe him one. Just sayin'.

@phxbillcee I simply make the point that if the joke had talked about a Fale codling moth / Thaumatotibia leucotreta, a moth that has resulted in the EU calling for a total ban on the export of Jewish grown fruit and called it the Jew moth do you think that the joke would have been allowed?
And ask yourself "why has a racially based epithet been applied to a moth in the first place?" Particularly a moth creating the damage that this one does?
As for smelling it from 7 miles distance i suggest that is an impossibility if the wind blows the smell away from the smeller. I suggest that the odour is what lingers in the air after the passage through the space. It may certainly remain undisturbed for sufficient time for the odour donor to travel 7 miles from the scene but unless the wind is blowing from donor to smeller there is no way it can be smelt from 7 miles distance. Agreed?

@FrayedBear Knock, knock. Who's there? A ridiculous breakdown of a simple joke to obfuscate being triggered by the name of a damn moth!